


Stepping Inside

by WolfAndHound_Archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Drama, Second War with Voldemort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 21:40:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5944036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfAndHound_Archivist/pseuds/WolfAndHound_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What someone meant to people behind. (A happy ending (?!))</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stepping Inside

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Lassenia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Wolf and Hound](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Wolf_and_Hound), which was created to make stories posted to the Sirius_Black_and_Remus_Lupin Yahoo! mailing list easier to find. However, even though I still love the fandom, I am no longer active in it and do not have the time to maintain it. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in December 2015. I posted an announcement with Open Doors, but we may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on the [Wolf and Hound collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/wolfandhound/profile).

After a week of thorough inspections and hard work, a massive collection of various objects sat in a room.

On one end, piles of dusty books faintly smelled sour with the taint of time. Black and white pictures scattered around the floor, flashing pantomimes of forgotten moments. Stacks of magical LP's and muggle cassette tapes stood mute. The wooden desk held colorful robes on its lacquered surface. One robe had a huge green stain on the sleeve. Some jewelry, apparently ancient and expensive, lay carelessly on the chair nearby. A few exploding snaps and pieces of magical chess rolled around annoyingly.

The small room was crowding with objects that demanded attention, and some things had to be levitated, even. Traces of a person were surprisingly extensive, even if the person had spent many years invisible and outcast. Remus Lupin drank a sip of water from the glass afloat near the broken lamp on the desk. It has been quite a feat to collect all sorts of things from the Ministry archive, dark rooms in the Grimmauld, and even the small house where Remus used to live a while ago.

Currently Remus was organizing all of them into categories. First there was a division between magical objects and un-charmed objects. They were divided further into five categories – commodities (clothes), academic supplies (books and stationery), recreational equipment (exploding snaps and other games), personal documents (letters and other pieces of paper), and garbage.

Remus momentarily paused to consider – was a drawing on the Potions notebook of Lucius Malfoy hanging by the feet upside down from a snapping branch recreational equipment, an academic supply, a personal document or garbage? Deciding to be more lenient on himself, Remus put the notebook in the middle of the room where the undecided went. There were a few sweat drops on his forehead. A rest was in order.

Remus pushed some books aside and sat down. Lying flat on the carpeted floor, he wondered why people downstairs would heat the room so much constantly. Remus's room was on the second floor, and he felt smothered with heat arising from the carpet through the ceiling on the first floor even when he opened the windows wide. Magical or not, it was such a waste of energy. Didn't they say in the Daily Prophet that there would be a major price increase for magical utilities? Come to think of it, the Ministry kept cutting budgets from education in the last few years, which was quite exasperating. Now the cost for war caught up, and one by one, public facilities were privatized. Who was rich enough to buy them? Remus could only wonder.

His thoughts once again lingered to the potions notebook he laid aside. His hand lazily reached for it. The cover was almost falling off, but it had never been handled gently. It read, in a bold but crooked handwriting, "Sirius Black's. Sod off everyone else". Once James wrote on the inside cover with permanent ink – "James Potter was here, 19xx. Sirius has a crush on Moaning Martle." Sirius got very annoyed and his hands somehow slipped the next moment, dripping some potion they were just making onto James's head. For one week James washed his head with bleach, hoping the smell of the rotten corpses of 99 flobberworms (which, indeed, were in the potion) would go away. Lines and lines overlapping with tic-tac-toe marks decorated the first page. Remus once had asked, "Why do you always choose the black side, James?" when they were serving detentions separately from Sirius and Peter. James had answered, "Sirius hates black."

His fingers flipped through the note. Sirius did have a neat handwriting in the early pages. In their fourth year, Sirius finally managed to smuggle some muggle gadgets from London during his haphazard two-day trip on a bus with two pounds and ten galleons in his pocket. One night in the common room, he vowed to use only notebooks to write on unless he had to use parchments for assignments. Remus was standing near the couch Sirius was leaning on to, and commented, "notebooks have no _dignitas_ , so to say." Sirius had stretched his arms. "That's the last thing I need." He had laughed it away. "Convenience comes before style."

His head on a low stack of other books, Remus eyed the lines of potions notes. He could tell where Sirius dozed off in the class, by the slurred writing, or where he got mad at the potions master, by the way the word "master" was spelled suspiciously like "baster". On the margin was a neat limerick depicting a day of such basters. There were many cuts of doodling throughout the pages. One of them was a sloppy, disproportional version of a dog, and beside it, a comment by James, "no Christmas present". Remus wondered why on earth James would have written that. Sirius must have made fun of James and Peter in the process of choosing animal forms for their illegal transformations.

Remus's eyes hurt. For a week his eyes have been trailing along lines and lines of writing, drawing, symbols, messages, documents, declarations. There were more things to sign, more things to swear an oath for, and more paperwork. Tired, he put the notebook aside.

The silvery chime rang. It was Remus's personal organizer, a timer of ten minutes. Peter had bought it for him more than fifteen years ago, upon Remus's request. Later, Sirius was outraged –"Why would you need another whistle to order you around?" he had asked. "You already have a moon to control you. Don't let a chime control your human life." "My human life is where I need control." Remus had explained – maturely, responsibly, sensibly. Sirius lost the thread of his logic, but he ruthlessly clung to the idea. "Peter's such a rat." He said with distaste. "He wouldn't be able to do anything great with this kind of mindset, giving a chime for a present." Remus shook my head and protested, "don't say bad things behind someone's back. It's bound to come back to you."

As always, Remus proved to be right, and Sirius, less so. It was just that there was no joy in being right, like Cassandra had no joy in giving away her magical prophecy.

Remus stood up. The bell was not to be violated against during work. Following it was What Was Right - trusting his good sense and reasonable, calm personality. By experience, he knew that he had to get on with work when there was time. Ignoring the logical plea and resting his weary body would mean more work tomorrow.

Remus's hands were occupied with ragged toys. The stuffed animals looked shrunken. Their furs were all very dark. "My mom always buys bad colors for me," it was the first time Sirius had mentioned anything about his family, back in the third year. He was unwrapping probably the last birthday present his family ever sent to him, and the rich, velvety material that composed the elegant and cushy bear had attracted Remus's attention. "No. Your mom has good taste,"

Remus, a premature thirteen-old kid, had disagreed. Sirius had pouted slightly but shut his mouth right away.

It seemed like an appropriate thing to say at that time. Be non-judgmental. Be unbiased. Be thoughtful. Say noncommittal words – they can't hurt anyone.

They can't hurt Remus himself.

People tend to separate one piece of memory from the rest, pretending that it was an isolated piece of information stored in their brains. In fact, all one remembers is usually a pattern of events. For example, Remus could not exactly remember one particular day when he realized Sirius liked Greek salad, but he just knew Sirius did after some time. Yet, the knowledge could not have been transposed to Remus's memory bit by bit. Realizations were always sudden, but their patterns built over time.

Remus laughed involuntarily. He was now sorting through various games Sirius had collected over time. One magical hero figure, dressed like a girl but with James's spectacles, drew the sentence out with his haunch, "move with me, Lily Evans," with a big heart puffed out at the end as a ring of smoke. To repay this lovely charm, James had charmed Sirius's nice dress robe, which somehow melted into sticky liquid in front of the whole Runes class the next day.

"Who likes anyone just because the person's handsome?"

Remus almost dropped the card he just opened. The owner of the voice was the old card that Lily had sent James during their fourth year. James kept glaring at Lily for three days after getting his howler, but Sirius sported a good joke out of it and kept the card in order to keep teasing James about it. Remus had wondered why James did not mind Sirius taking the card.

Until Remus knew Sirius had decided to run away from his house and live at Potter's.

Remus shut the card and opened again. It repeated the same sentence. "Who likes anyone just because the person's handsome?" The card shrieked. Remus sighed in amused annoyance. Lily had been so upright – she made sense. At the same time, her dry humor kept her from being overly prudent. Serving as a prefect with her was the closest Remus had to working with a perfect colleague.

Does anyone like anyone else just because the person's handsome?

The sentence rolled around on the tip of Remus's tongue. Lily had yelled at James. Lily had kept disapproving and throwing insults at him. She had corrected and chided him, "with such supreme self-righteousness and satisfaction in her own qualities", Sirius had once said. No. Sirius had misunderstood her. Even Remus himself had misunderstood her. Throughout the school years Lily was modest, kind and friendly to everybody. She kept her thoughts to herself, avoided problems with the Slytherins, and was agreeable to the most disagreeable sort. She never lectured anyone directly, always leading people to find truth on their own. In all, she was nice to everyone.

Except to James.

Remus knew, all too well, how one definition about a person could really stick. Once Hermione, after solving a really long-winded problem in his class during her third year, shook her head and said, "I'd rather exchange studying with a nundu if I could." Facing that sentence only, a stranger would form an opinion of her that did not match with Hermione's real personality. Of course, Remus knew by now that different situations could bring out different and contradicting personal qualities in a person.

The fact that Lily incessantly chastised James only should have told them something. James liked to believe that Lily fell in love with himself one odd day, when she saw James and realized "what a great catch he would be". Remus, however, thought better – Lily was just too proud to announce that she had always quibbled with James for a reason other than that she hated him.

For Lily, quibbling James was an emotional stimulus to expose her unexpectedly pesky side.

Gathering feather quills to one side, Remus breathed deeply. Another bit of nostalgia shook through him.

Sirius, lanky and stupidly mute, standing in the station with trembling eyes. Nervously chewing on his quill in the train and even drooling on one.

Muggles called it autism – really, everyone thought it odd to find a stupid, quiet and sullen Black going into Gryffindor during the Sorting Ceremony.

After seven years, no one remembered the "un-cool" Sirius. Girls fantasized about him and boys admired him.

During the early days of their first year, however, Sirius used to be a timid, messy boy who simply wouldn't talk. Even when James, the popular boy, pitied him and took him under his wing, Sirius remained a pariah, a speck on the jade.

One particular rainy evening, Remus had entered the common room, only to find Sirius sitting on the couch, his eyes swollen red but his lips sealed. Timidity mixed with sympathy nagged at Remus, and he tried an eye contact with the unlovable, sulky child awkwardly. Sirius, feeling the friendly gaze, looked up and locked his eyes with those of Remus's. For a while there was a smile hanging between them with neither of them actually smiling. Sirius's originally curled-up body was uncoiling gradually, his probably smelly face relaxing into a vague relief. Remus wanted to say something – if he had said anything at all at that time, the dam would have been broken. It would have been guaranteed that those blue eyes, expressive and firy for a kid, be fixed on the sandy haired boy for life. Sirius's lips were slightly apart. For one moment those twitched lips did not look repulsive. The blue eyes were screaming – _More. More._ Little Remus had felt enchanted by such an eager acceptance of his friendliness.

Had Remus not felt the wolf stirring up with the call of full moon, he would have said something.

Instead of bolting from the common room pathetically.

Had the transformation not been that close a call, Remus would have stayed a little longer, jeopardizing himself and the rest of the students instead of being sensible, responsible and mature.

After Remus had come back from the recovery in the hospital wing the next day, he saw the jet-black haired boy Potter trotting along with the formerly sullen boy. The formerly sullen boy, of course, had washed himself, smelled nice (like James's shampoo), and even grinned when James joked.

Did Remus shrug? He could not remember. He certainly had not read the muggle book about a merwoman princess – but he would have been able to written the story just as wonderfully and sadly.

"Books," Remus murmured, pushing a pillar of books with his foot, "can be a nuisance."

They filled up the most space and were the heaviest. Most of the books there had little use for Remus anyways. Except for some textbooks, most were muggle magazines, Quidditch guides, UMF (unbelievable magic fictions), and some philosophical garbage that Sirius was once into during the fifth year.

Back then, Sirius had questioned – what the hell was the point in life? Remus, already out of that kind of phase, was slightly apprehensive of already traumatized Sirius getting his hands at existentialism that Remus generally considered childish and immature. By that time Remus had fairly accurate eyes for literature and was not fooled by big names. Sirius, the inexperienced, had devoured those books. With those literatures in his head, without a proper guide to their interpretations and with tirades and howlers thrown by his mother, Sirius was getting more and more indifferent and nonchalant every day, and his jokes took on more and more of a reckless and malicious tone.

Once Remus "accidentally" poured a bucket of strange potion on the books ruining them all, and Sirius's attitude towards him grew cold for quite a few weeks. While Remus regretted his right decision, he was too clear-headed and logical to apologize for something that he believed was a right decision. One thing that mature Remus did not know was that Sirius needed someone to apologize for all the sins in the world, all the things that kept hurting him.

When Snape provoked Sirius on the account of his friendship with Remus one day in front of everyone, Remus almost anticipated a thing like the Willow incident to happen, although he had been dizzy with initial shock and anger for a long time after it happened. James surprisingly was very unforgiving of Sirius. Even Peter had avoided him like a plague. In fact, Remus, ironically, was the only person who understood Sirius – Remus, who almost killed a student because of his friend's betrayal. The real paradox was that Remus could not explain why in a logical term. He could not defend Sirius – he could find no words to. Sirius never apologized for the incident and the chasm between them seemed to deepen every time they brushed by each other without a word.

Yet, strangely, many patterns of memories- incomplete, fragmentary – had rushed into his mind. They had assembled a little monster in Remus's mind that effectively ignored logic – oh, so proudly right all the time- and hugged the friendless, fake-smiling Sirius in his imagination. Of course, Remus had not said or acted it out. He just kept that in mind, saving it for the time when both would feel comfortable with the idea of forgiving and being forgiven.

That never took place for over fifteen years...

"I should probably burn these," Remus murmured, going through another folder full of Sirius's report cards. Remus had been known for his studiousness during the school years. He of course was extremely smart, and his motto was "a fool who tries is better than a genius who doesn't." When he still did not have particularly close friends, he was free to carefully construct his shell around himself– study, try hard, and be invisible. Like periwinkles, he moved slowly, with his burden on his then-small shoulders, already carrying around the pain and sorrow worth of several lifetimes of others.

This shell all broke loose when Sirius, at the end of their second year, rudely walked into the bathroom and tossed the homework parchment into Remus's wet hands (he was brushing his teeth).

"I don't know what the hell is going on here. Neither does James. You'd better be able to figure out, like the geek you are."

Remus, who then still perceived Sirius as a quiet, dark boy, started to frown but laughed softly when Sirius threw a huge piece of roll cake at him. Apparently he had stolen it from the kitchen.

"Next time, get me chocolate mousse. I don't like carrot." Remus had said.

Much later, Remus realized that at that moment something had stepped inside his life and changed it forever. The abrupt disappearance of distance required Remus to build a new shell, this time more subtle and private.

Did people realize that one could be very close to another without communicating freely? First, fear – of Sirius and James knowing about the lycanthropy – built a wall. When Sirius jumped across the wall with the means of his spying and eventual discovery, Remus had been painfully appreciative. Appreciative because no one had bothered to go that far until then. Painful because no one had been so nosy and annoying about it until then.

A difference it made? Until then he did not feel particularly lonely. Now, he felt lonely when he was alone.

A quick scan through those report cards made Remus wonder what kind of parents Sirius's would really have been not to be proud of their son. No matter how beautiful and talented this brother of Regulus would have been, the report cards showed that Sirius was a shining star, active and improving so fast.

Well, in the first place, it was them who suppressed Sirius.

Remus picked up the report card folder and placed it with other garbage. He now had to go through pictures and clothes, the last two categories he had been avoiding so far. Pictures were too vivid to dwell vaguely on memories with, and dealing clothes had more implications.

That the owner would not wear them again.

"Hm."

Instead, Remus tried to think of his first encounter with Sirius after the Willow incident. Remus was drying his hair on the couch in his dormitory. Sirius, who was assigned the room with James and two other boys the next-door, suddenly sneaked into the room and placed himself behind the couch. Upon hearing the squeak of the door, Remus's hands in his hair had become mechanical and frigid. His eyes had turned sideways with the coolest glance possible.

But even Remus did not expect Sirius to disentangle Remus's hands from the hair impatiently and started roping it with his own hands. "What are you doing?" Remus had asked. His muscles had tensed with annoyance and static anger like an old dry crumb.

"Drying your hair." Sirius had said, with an unbelievably timid voice that totally contradicted the bold action. "And I want to braid it."

"If you braid my hair I will cut your ear off." Remus had suggested. So Sirius did not braid it.

They did not talk in public for another two weeks – just because it felt awkward. Remus had wondered when the best time to get over with the forgiving thing would be.

_Did it have to be postponed to a much later date, after everything changed...?_

Suddenly, a knock sounded.

"Professor Lupin."

Remus recognized the voice.

"Good day, Harry." Without turning around, Remus assured himself mentally that he has locked the door.

"Are you busy?" For a boy who had been writhing in misery for two months, his voice sounded calm.

"Yes, actually. But hold on a minute. Let me put this away and open the door for you." Remus answered. There was a silence for a while. Remus busied himself with hiding the objects as soon as possible.

"You don't need to. I know what you are doing there." Harry said curtly, almost too politely. It unnerved him.

"Sorry. Come in…"

"No." Harry cut Remus's sentence with his serene voice. "I just came to tell you something."

"What is it?"

"I don't like the way you are dealing with it."

Harry's comment cut his mind more deeply than Remus thought it would.

"In fact, I hate the way you are dealing with it. I don't like the way you just held me back, helpless, and said, `Harry, let go. Harry, he is…' back then. I am glad I never let you finish the sentence." Harry babbled on with a light voice.

"You accept it with such a perfect face, Professor Lupin." Harry stressed the word `professor'. "I don't know what you are doing in there, locking up and murmuring stuff, perhaps crying over old memories. Then you will burn most of it, telling me with your gentle voice, `Harry, let go' when in fact the person who really wants to let it go is you."

Despite his understanding of Harry, Remus's breath caught in pain. Affection for Harry has become a silver blade, drawing imaginary blood again and again from his mind. Remus also knew that Harry was stabbing himself with his own words.

"I forbid you to burn them, Professor Lupin. You did not trust Sirius for many years, and you all did not trust Sirius enough to let him out of this rotten house. You led a serene life when Sirius was rotting in hell, occasionally grieving but getting on with life. Did Sirius mean so little for you? Did your only friend mean so little?" Harry's voice was raised slightly. He seemed equally out of breath.

"You did not talk to Dumbledore about Sirius. All of you, who know what's best for everyone. I can say lots of things about your bloody logic and sensibility. Why doesn't Voldemort come to his sense and become a nice person? Why doesn't Cho Chang wake up and be more honest? Why doesn't the world unite to create an ideal world? That would make much more sense than what's going on right now, right?"

Harry paused to exhale loudly. Remus could feel the sound of Harry's polite sigh through the door.

"Sirius, don't do this. Sirius, when would you ever learn? Sirius, don't you know what the hell is best for Harry? Oh, sorry. You lot would never say the word `hell' because you are all mature. All responsible, not like Sirius. But did you ever stop to think that some people actually could not be helped to be that way? Or were you all trying to fit him into a Procrustean bed of logic by cutting off his legs?"

By this time Remus was quite sure Harry had practice this at least a hundred times.

"I did not complain a bit about that, did I? I blamed myself forever, not even being able to grieve. But apparently I'm the only person blaming himself, since everyone else all made right decisions, only at wrong moments. And now, `dealing' with Sirius's possessions? How dare you, Professor Lupin? Who ordered you? The ever-wise Headmaster Dumbledore?"

Remus did not know the name of the Headmaster could be pronounced with such loath by a member of the Order, let along by the-boy-who-lived. Swallowing up emotions that made Remus almost vomit in self-disgust, he slowly figured out what was going on.

Harry was not talking to Remus. He was talking to the injustice of the world in general. He just chose Remus because Remus was one person Harry trusted without annoyed wariness and because Remus gave him a convenient excuse to whine about – disposing of Sirius's earthly possession.

As soon as Remus realized this, he unlatched and opened the door without hesitation. He held the boy by his shoulder, stared into the shining green eyes and slapped him.

The force made Harry almost bang against the wall. Remus's strong hands securely held Harry in place. For a while Harry seemed dazed.

"I used to walk around James and Lily's house near the full moon with Sirius, Harry." Remus began.

"We decided to count how many different kinds of trees there were in the forest around your house. I said 26, and he said 25. We argued over it for five weeks and finally decided to count them together one night."

Harry's cheek was still red with broken capillary vessels.

"After many hours, we finally reached a giant tree. It had its body partly split by a thunder and shared by another tree on one side. I pointed at it and proudly said, `see, Sirius. Those two trees are different kinds. It is 26.' Sirius shook his head gravely, `No, Remus. Once together, always together. They are one.' I smacked him and said that he was absurd."

Remus gently released Harry's shoulders from the grip. Harry did not move.

"Of course, he was being absurd. He lost his trainee position when he submitted an inspection report of the werewolves in the reserve, saying that there was nothing wrong with a wolf being inside a man and that they were essentially one."

At that time, Remus did not know why Sirius had lost the job. He had snapped at Sirius who had tired eyes, let out his anger at Sirius's immaturity. Sirius's eyes had turned glassy, repeating that Remus was boring, boring, and he had no business with anything Sirius did or did not do. Remus had stormed out on him.

Remus still remembered what emotions went through him when a colleague of Sirius at work, who did not know about Remus's lycanthropy, mentioned the reason to Remus two days later. Remus had run to Sirius's flat, hoping to put an end to the endless misunderstanding.

Hoping to embrace him, be embraced, just rightly.

Sirius's flat was empty, however, and Remus had lost the final threat of courage when he saw Sirius drinking with a woman in a nearby pub.

"Lily threw a party for it. She was glad of it because Sirius did not like the position anyways. James, of course, was sulking for Sirius. When Sirius came home and saw us ready for partying, he laughed so hard that you woke up from your slumber and started crying." Sirius had hugged Remus. His eyes had really softened, his usually reckless yet stern face relaxing into natural joviality. His fingers had caressed Remus's tawny hair, wrapping a strand around his pinky and already blabbering out his future plan as a motorbike charmer. That was the last event that came close to "the forgiving- and-being-forgiven" meeting... if only Peter did not walk in and took Sirius by the arm, whispering something in his ears that made Sirius's black eyebrows flinch.

Why did he not realize that no forgiving and being forgiven was necessary at that point?

"Harry. Sirius is not illogical and sulky. It is a shadowy side of him that we all saw during the last year, his dark side untamed through years of Azkaban and his youth. He used to be very supportive of people he trusted. He had his own reasoning and logic. He was a wonderful person." Remus breathed deeply. Harry imitated the motion.

"I would like to tell you how much Sirius had tried his best to enjoy his life in his youth, or how much he really appreciated peace and justice. He hated his inability to do things right. He hurt himself every time he fucked up." Harry's eyes widened a little.

"No one who got hurt by him really absolved his deed completely. But they still know to appreciate the real Sirius and come to terms with things that are difficult to tolerate."

Remus lowered his head and stooped in front of Harry eye-level.

"Because that was the whole of Sirius. That was the scar he had, like yours on the forehead or mine on the chest. It condemned him to repel the most agreeable people and make so many mistakes that cost lives. Yet we know he lived through it. We know he kept himself together until the end."

The last sentence came hoarse.

"We know Sirius."

Harry nodded. His green eyes looked less green and more aqua now. His facial expression resembled someone who chocked on butterbeer he was drinking impatiently.

"We knew him." Harry mumbled.

"Yeah. We." Remus nodded. Harry's lips moved with indecipherable words for a while, until his voice became coherent again.

"I did not mean most of what I said earlier, Professor. I was not angry with you." Harry swallowed the fatal word: sorry. "I was just angry that you were able to let go so easily, discarding Sirius's possessions already."

"I am not discarding all, Harry. I want you to keep most of what's worth keeping. The rest, we will burn tomorrow." Remus said with a kind voice.

"I…" Harry scratched his head. "You would have made a really good godfather, almost as good as Sirius." Harry shyly stammered. Remus hastily turned around and went back to the room before he could see that Harry, crying uncontrollably, turned and went back to boys' room.

+++

"Come in."

Awaking from a slumber, Remus greeted the visitor to the room. The cleaning was finally over and it was now empty of Sirius's smell and the ghost of memories. Molly looked around the room and sighed.

"It is as neat as ever."

"Thank you." He smiled, not wanting to elaborate on a quiet bonfire he made with Harry yesterday. The rest of the possession that he deemed worthy, Harry took most of them.

"So, now that you got over the process, what are you going to do?" Molly asked genially, her voice with a right amount of sorrow. Remus looked at her. Her red hair was dull with time and age. Her waist, once thin enough for Arthur to rope his lanky arms around it, had loosened and fattened with the births of seven children and scraps of food she ate in the kitchen for more than twenty years. One thing Remus did not quite realize often was that she was almost over ten years older than him. In essence, she was of the previous generation.

"I don't know. Fighting. Living on. Trying." he spat out prepared words. She seemed to accept them.

"You? Worrying about family and the world peace as ever?"

Molly seemed to consider for a moment.

In the next moment, she started sobbing.

"Oh Remus… I feel so guilty. I feel so guilty about Sirius… I said such awful things at him, you know. I blamed him for everything. I told him that he was an awful godfather for Harry… Of course, Harry needed better care, but that does not mean I had a right to say that. Sirius probably felt really lonely and hostile. He could not even trust our own justice. All he had was Harry…" she paused and looked in the amber eyes. "and you." Remus raised one eyebrow.

_What about me? I only had Sirius._

But Remus did not say it aloud. Molly, apparently soothed by this sudden outburst, calmed down a little and wiped her tears.

"Sorry about this. I just really felt bad… After all what happened, you know. I could have treated him far better…"

"But you wouldn't even if you could relive it, would you?" Remus suddenly stopped her. Molly's eyes dilated for an instance and her gasps were audible.

"…What? I… how… you…"

"You are just regretting your action because Sirius died. If he hadn't, he would be sitting at the end of the table, sulking and putting everyone down with pouts and whines. You would snap at him as if he were your bad child – and he is actually more of your sons' generation than yours in terms of age – and you two would just start quarrelling." Molly's face became deathly pale now. Remus's voice was smooth.

"Dumbledore would say, `all will be revealed later', but actually, nothing important would be revealed in time. The members of the Order would go back and forth, discuss several options, and fall back on the safest one possible. Snape would maliciously grin as he sees Sirius watch everyone leave. And I would…" A pause.

"I would try to convince him to be more positive and patient, with all the logic and sense I can muster. And fail miserably because I refuse to recognize his real needs."

Remus got up from the bed and grabbed his bag. "And the tension would go on until Sirius breaks it like a fly breaks the web by being eaten by the spider."

Molly did not faint. Instead, she slumped on the couch.

"I have to go work now. I will see you later." he formally said goodbye. Something made him turn around and say the last sentence.

"Let's not keep giving this to our children and grandchildren- misunderstanding, chaos, hatred. We have to let Sirius go."

Before Molly realized what his true meaning was, Remus darted from the room. He knew where he had to go. In his bag were three necromancy books that he stole and smuggled from the Hogwarts library and the Grimmauld, illegal unicorn blood, various potions ingredients he also stole from Snape's collection, and his own wolf's nails he forced out of the wolf's fingers during the last full moon. He had prepared perfectly, planned for two months and organized everything. He was the Dark Art Professor after all, and the best member of the Order. He could do it.

From far he saw the stately stone building. He was nearing the Ministry building. The guards eyed him suspiciously but made no objection to his ID as a member of the Order. Without hesitation, he walked straight to one particular room.

Remus sighed. After all, trying was a better option than not trying. For this, Remus was sure Sirius would agree wholeheartedly.

Remus stood in front of the veil and took out magical objects from his bag.

~Fin~


End file.
